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Saturday, May 31, 2014

Moderate race at TCS World 10K Bangalore 2014

Considering that for the 1st time ever I ran a race without a watch and the first time since 2007 without a Garmin and that I had not trained specifically for the event I am satisfied with my finish time. My primary goal was to do a sub 50 and depending on the first half to get as close to 46 minutes as possible. Few minutes before the start of the race fellow runner Sampath Jayaram tensed up on realising that his Garmin refused to power on. As he was targeting a PB with a goal of sub 40 I could relate to this. Not having a stringent timing goal I had no hesitation to giving my Garmin to Sampath.

Bib Number

834

Name

BHASKER SHARMA

Gender

MALE

Category

50 to 60 years

Overall Rank

296 out of 10913

Category Rank

12 out of 241

Gender Rank

289 out of 9081

Split@3.9 Km

00:17:56 at an Avg Speed of 13.05 Kmph

Split@6.1 Km

00:28:20 at an Avg Speed of 12.92 Kmph

Split@7.5 Km

00:35:51 at an Avg Speed of 12.55 Kmph

Split@8.5 Km

00:40:39 at an Avg Speed of 12.55 Kmph

Net Time

00:47:30 at an Avg Speed of 12.63 Kmph

Gross Time

00:47:37

Irina and I left Domlur at about 525am and after parking the car in Lavelle road we reached the stadium around 550am. There was a long queue of runners to get into the stadium. I joined Shilpi and Rishi in the front of the queue. Once inside I rushed to use the loo. The port-a-loos had long lines of people waiting. However, the stadium toilet close the coral A entrance was pretty much empty. Reached the corral a little after 6am and went down the steps close to the exit gate and mingled with the other runners. At about 6:17am the gate opened and the corral A runners moved to the start line on the tracks. The race was flagged off by John Abraham and Carl Lewis at 6:20am. I started at a brisk pace with Shilpi and just behind Amrita. Looking at the Timing India splits above I reached the 3.9Km point at an average pace of 4:35/Km. Like every year the pace started to drop after about 5Km and I reached the 8.5Km at an average pace of 4:47/Km. By this time Amrita had pulled ahead. Though I pushed myself I was a bit wary of pushing too hard due to the iffy left leg. So crossing the finish line at an average pace of 4:45/Km was quite satisfactory. Though given that I had done a solo 10K training running in EGL a few days earlier in 47:54 I should have done at least a minute faster. This is where the average pace on the Garmin would probably have helped. Due to overnight rain while it was a bit cooler it felt humid towards the end of the race. Near the High court at the entrance to Cubbon park there was a huge puddle of water covering the road (this could possibly have been cleared up by the organisers) due to which runners had to get on the pavement. This was also the first 10K race in which I ran without stopping at all for water.

Overall the race was well organised at least for runners starting from corral A. For runners starting in the later corrals specially D, E and F the initial few Kms was very congested due to the sheer number of runners many of whom were slow and probably 1st timers. While it is great that the running movement is growing rapidly the organisers needs to make it smoother for the runners starting later to try and achieve their time goals. The Km markers along the route were clearly marked. Also there were huge trash bins a few metres from the aid stations for runners to throw water bottles in which was a major new feature of this year's race. Another addition was pacers for 1 hr, 1:15 and 1:30 finishes. The post race medal and refreshments collection process was smooth. After hanging out in the finish area for some time we walked to the car(s) in a group. The finish area became extremely crowded by the time we left.

Near UB City on the way to the cars

And drove for breakfast to Konark on Residency road- Nagaraj Adiga hosting a fantastic breakfast after the 10K race has now become a tradition. This year there were a huge number of runners at breakfast including many from Hyderabad and Chennai!!